Cook Islands United Party leader Teariki Heather has requested that Te Marae Ora, Ministry of Health consider employing interpreters at the hospitals to assist foreign doctors.

During Question-and-Answer time in Parliament yesterday, Opposition MP Heather said he had discovered that most Cook Islanders were going to a private doctor due to the difficulty in communication with foreign doctors who cannot speak Reo Maori.

TMO Minister Rosi Toki-Brown agreed with Heather but pointed out that they are also having difficulties finding Cook Islands doctors who can speak the language.

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Te Marae Ora health ministry does not have funding allocated to assist mothers with passports for their new born.

Minister Rose Toki-Brown confirmed this after Opposition MP Robert Heather highlighted the case of a mother who had given birth to twins and needed medical attention in New Zealand.

Heather said the emergency New Zealand passport fee was around $680, and the mother was having financial difficulties.

Toki-Brown said TMO was looking into the matter of newborns who needed to be transferred to New Zealand for medical reasons.

She said the Cook Islands government does not issue or prepare passports in the Cook Islands, as that authority remains with the New Zealand government.

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Prime Minister Mark Brown says the 2025-2026 National Budget, currently being debated in Parliament, has allocations for police and this includes community policing.

Responding to queries raised in Parliament yesterday by Opposition MP Teariki Heather, Brown says the new Police Commissioner Teokotai Joseph is very supportive of community policing.

Brown, the Minister for Police, said he would be meeting Commissioner Joseph tomorrow and could provide more details on this sometime next week.

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Opposition leader Tina Browne will be provided copies of official documents and agreements made between the governments of Cook Islands and China in February this year.

Browne told PM Mark Brown that in the last Parliament session, she had made a request if any documents that were signed with China could be provided.

PM Brown responded that he was aware all of those documents were publicly available online, but he would have copies of the “signed documents” printed and delivered to the Opposition leader.